Effects of aging on neuromagnetic mismatch responses to pitch changes

Chia Hsiung Cheng, Sylvain Baillet, Fu Jung Hsiao, Yung Yang Lin*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

Although aging-related alterations in the auditory sensory memory and involuntary change discrimination have been widely studied, it remains controversial whether the mismatch negativity (MMN) or its magnetic counterpart (MMNm) is modulated by physiological aging. This study aimed to examine the effects of aging on mismatch activity to pitch deviants by using a whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) together with distributed source modeling analysis. The neuromagnetic responses to oddball paradigms consisting of standards (1000 Hz, p=0.85) and deviants (1100. Hz, p= 0.15) were recorded in healthy young (n=20) and aged (n=18) male adults. We used minimum norm estimate of source reconstruction to characterize the spatiotemporal neural dynamics of MMNm responses. Distributed activations to MMNm were identified in the bilateral fronto-temporo-parietal areas. Compared to younger participants, the elderly exhibited a significant reduction of cortical activation in bilateral superior temporal guri, superior temporal sulci, inferior fontal gyri, orbitofrontal cortices and right inferior parietal lobules. In conclusion, our results suggest an aging-related decline in auditory sensory memory and automatic change detection as indexed by MMNm.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)20-24
Number of pages5
JournalNeuroscience Letters
Volume544
DOIs
StatePublished - 07 06 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Aging
  • Auditory sensory memory
  • Involuntary attention switch
  • Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
  • Mismatch negativity (MMN)

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